the ministry was finally settled.'1Under them, (that is, the apostles,) were placed pastors and teachers, who were, says bishop Sherlock, comprehended under the general name of prophets." The same thing is affirmed by bishop Skinner,3 and as we shall see by others. By the term prophets, therefore, in this passage, is to be understood presbyters.

12

Here, then, the ministerial succession is distinctly traced from the apostles to presbyters, who were inwrought, by the spirit of God, into the very contexture of that foundation on which the entire fabric of the church rests. The apostles, in order to establish a regular and standing ministry in the church, went about ordaining presbyters, and these presbyters, under their sanction or associated with them, ordained other presbyters also, as we shall show. Presbyters constitute, therefore, the only general and authorized order of the christian ministry, as part and parcel of the necessary frame-work of the church. Presbyters are the only true and valid successors of the apostles, and prelates, if they will not take a place in the christian ministry, by virtue of their implied presbyterate, but will insist on being some other and distinct order, must find their place beyond the foundation, and of course without the walls of that temple which God builded, and not man.

If this argument is inconclusive, then it must be so because there is no conclusiveness in the arguments for three orders, even as urged by archbishop Potter, in a work which is regarded as one of the most standard authorities in favor of prelatic episcopacy.

This argument may be strengthened by a reference to that other arrangement of the ministry of the church, in Eph. 4: 11, already adverted to. And he,' that is, Christ, 'gave some to be apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers.' That the apostles were, in their peculiar character, extraordinary officers, and incapable of being succeeded, has been already shown. That prophets, who were next to them, were presbyters, with peculiar gifts, is, we have seen, granted. Evangelists, therefore, could not, in order, be superior to prophets, and were, therefore, also presbyters, or teachers, with powers extended to many churches. So thinks lord Barrington and many others. And that the pastors and teachers were the same

1) The Ch. the Converter of the Heathen, Serm. ii. p. 8, Oxf. 1839.

89.

2) Wks. vol. iii. p. 281.
3) See in Mitchell's Letters to p.

4) See chap. i. 6, p. 33.
5) Wks. vol. i. p. 60. Thorndike's

Prim. Govt. pp. 37, 38, 39, 252. Sinclair's Vind. of the Apost. Succ. Lond. 1839, p. 20, who calls them Missionaries. So also Eusebius and Stillingfleet, in Iren, and Dr. Rice's Evang. Mag. vol. x. p. 586.

persons, and presbyters, and here represent the ungifted, ordinary, and permanent ministry of the church, is plain. What other were they,' says Hooker, 'than presbyters also, howbeit settled in some charge, and THEREBY differing from evangelists,' who were therefore also presbyters.1 Dr. Pusey ranks the prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, all below apostles, and, therefore, in the order of presbyters. It was,' says he,' the office of evangelists to extend Christ's kingdom among the heathen, and of pastors and teachers to cultivate and secure the ground thus taken into the vineyard.' So that there is only one general permanent order of ministers established by Christ in his church, the presbyterate.3

§ 5. The spiritual officers of the New Testament churches, are ranked under the classifications of presbyters or bishops, and deacons, without any allusion whatever to prelates.

Another preliminary argument, of some importance to the cumulative character of our proofs, is the fact that every where, throughout the New Testament, without variation, the spiritual officers of the churches are ranked under the classifications of presbyters, or bishops, and deacons. There were, as has been said, some, of both these classes, extraordinarily qualified, by various heavenly gifts, for special functions, and, in this respect, distinguished by titles derived from their peculiar endowments. But, as it regards the ordinary and stated functionaries in the churches, in all the inspired epistles and other records, they are described as the bishops and deacons - or the presbyters and deacons. But deacons, as we shall show, and as is allowed, are not an order of spiritual ministers, in any proper sense of the term, and therefore, there was, at this time, but one order of ministers, in all the churches known to the New Testament writers. That there was but one ministerial order in the apostolic church, is granted indeed by Dr. Hammond, bishop Taylor, and others, though they are anxious to prove that it was the order of prelates. We, however, have already clearly established the indubitable certainty of the divine institution of the order of presbyters, by the im

1) B. v. § 78, vol. ii. p. 391, also Barrington's Wks. vol. i. p. 50.

2) The Ch. the Converter of the Heathen, p. 8.

3) See this view of the passage in Ephesians, presented by Mr. Drury, one of the Westminister Assembly of Divines, in his Model of Ch. Govt.

Lond. 1641, pp. 3, 7, 23, 30. Also in the cxi. Propositions concerng. the Govt. of the Ch. submitted to the Gen. Ass. of Ch. of Scotld. in 1647. Edinb. 1647. Prop. ii. p. 1.

4) E. g. Phil. 1: 1; 1 Tim. 3; 1 Pet. 5: 12; Acts, 20: 18; Tit. 1: 5, 7.

5) Palmer on the Church, vol. ii.

mediate agency and express direction of the apostles, and under the broad seal of Christ's divine charter and commission. Prelates, therefore, as a distinct order, must necessarily be disbanded, deposed from their high office, and reduced, if found otherwise worthy and qualified to remain in the ministry at all, which is not by any means a certainty, to the simple, scriptural rank of ordinary ministers. For to whom were the powers of the apostles, as far as they were continued in the church, transferred, if not to these presbyterbishops? Prelatists have no other scriptural name to give them. They dare not call them apostles. They were not deacons. They were, and must be, presbyters.1 Besides, it cannot be denied, that we have, in the New Testament, a careful delineation of the qualifications necessary for bishops or presbyters, and deacons, but nowhere, as has been seen, is there any such view of the qualifications of the still more important orders of apostles, evangelists, prophets, or prelates. And why so? Manifestly because the former were the only permanent and standing officers designed for the church, while the latter were extraordinary and temporary, being placed in the church, not by the appointment of men, but by the immediate designation and endowment of Christ himself.2

§ 6. The terms bishop and presbyter, both as they refer to the office and to the individuals holding it, are used throughout the New Testament as perfectly synonymous, and the very fact that prelatists have usurped the title of bishop, is proof positive of the human origin of the system of prelacy. Many objections are answered.

This leads us to remark, as a further argument, that throughout the whole New Testament, the words presbyter and bishop, with their cognate terms, both as they refer to the office and its incumbent, are used interchangeably, and as perfectly synonymous, and the very fact that prelatists have usurped the title of bishop, is proof positive of the human origin of the system of prelacy. That these terms are so employed, has already been proved. We shall only refer to one example. Nothing can be more plain than the identification of the office, order, and duties of presbyters and bishops, by the apostle Paul, in his last solemn charge to the

1) See Dr. Rice's Evang. Mag. vol. x. p. 575.

2) See Macknight on 1 Tim. 5: 17, in vol. iii. p. 206.

Ephesian presbyters. These presbyters are here expressly denominated overseers, and are said to have been constituted bishops by the Holy Ghost, the very term being employed which prelates have appropriated to themselves. Again, these presbyters are charged, by the apostle, to rule, guide, or feed the flock of God, as a shepherd does his flock; taking the oversight over them, that is, exercising a bishop's office over them, for the same word is again used. Whatever, therefore, is implied in ruling, governing, overseeing, and feeding the flock of God, or in the application of the official title of episcopos, or bishop, is here given to presbyters, under the most solemn sanctions, and by the Holy Ghost.1

The word bishop, as now employed by prelatists, has reference, chiefly, to the other orders of ministers, over whom it is supposed to imply oversight, authority, and supremacy. But in the New Testament, where it is only used in the substantive, or personal form, five times, (Acts, 20: 28; Phil. 1:1; 1 Tim. 3: 1-5; 1 Pet. 2: 25; Titus, 1: 5-7;) it has an invariable reference, not to the ministry, but to the flock ministered unto.2 Enioxonos, or bishop, means overseer, one who has charge or oversight committed to him. It is expressive of whatever functions may be delegated to an individual, or prescribed to him by his employer. The word presbyter, means elder, senior, and is expressive, therefore, not of the functions of the office, but of the authority and power from which those functions flow, and by which they are authorized. And thus the same individual may very often consistently be called a bishop, as overseeing his flock, and a presbyter, as empowered to watch over them, by a divine commission. The apostle Peter, in his first epistle, (5: 1, 2,) certainly distinguishes the dignity of the sacred office by the name presbyters, but the duties connected with it by the term επισκοπειν, which is the same as ποιμαινειν.3 'I can discover,' says Neander, 'no other difference between the terms πρεσβύτεροι, and επισκοποι, in the apostolic age, than that the first signifies rank, the second the duties of the office." The only difference, therefore, is in favor of the greater dignity

1) On this passage, see Vitringa de Synagog. vet. p. 476. Thorndike on Prim. Govt. of the Ch. p. 36. Hooker's admission in Baxter on Episc. p. 49. Dr. Wilson's Prim. Govt. of the Ch. p. 278. Peirce's Vind. of Prot. Dissent. part ii. pp. 50, 57. Jameson's Fundament. of the Hier. p. 157.

2) Jamieson's Sum of the Episco

pal Controversy, pp. 78-80, &c. Powell on Apostolic Succession, pp. 38, 39. It is also used, in another form, in 1 Pet. 5: 1,2, and Acts i. 'his bishopric.'

3) Neander's Hist. of the First Plantg. of Christ'y. vol. i. p. 167. 4) Ibid, 169 Ń.

This name of presbyter, by this office was first distin

implied in the term presbyter. which,' says this same writer, 2 guished, was transferred from the Jewish synagogue to the christian church. But when the church extended further among Hellenic Gentiles, with this name borrowed from the civil and religious constitution of the Jews, another was joined, which was more allied to the designations of social relations among the Greeks, and adapted to point out the official duties connected with the dignity of presbyters. The name εлισ×олоs denoted overseers over the whole of the church and its collective concerns; as in Attica, those who were commissioned to organize the states dependent on Athens, received the title of xoxo, and as, in general, it appears to have been a frequent one, for denoting a guiding oversight in the public administration. Since then, the name exo was no other than a transference of an original Jewish and Hellenistic designation of office, adapted to the social relations of the Gentiles; it follows, that originally both names related entirely to the same office, and hence both names are frequently interchanged as perfectly synonymous.'

Now-to apply these remarks-these and other phrases are employed, in the New Testament, to denote one and the same officer, and one and the same office. The importance of this conclusion will appear from the fact established in our previous argument. For if, throughout the New Testament, in every catalogue of officers; in every form of salutation; in every directory as to ministerial qualifications; ministers are spoken of as bishops and presbyters indifferently, then does it follow that there is but one order of fixed and permanent ministers recognised in the New Testament.

There was a time when it was denounced as heresy to maintain this position. Two of the charges alleged by Epiphanius against Aerius were, that he taught that the apostle, in the third chapter of his first epistle to Timothy, enumerates the qualifications, not of prelates, but of presbyters, and that in Titus, 1: 5-7, Paul considered bishops and presbyters the same persons, calling them indifferently by either name.3 Even since that time the opinion now advanced, has been controverted with all imaginable zeal and learning, as by bishop

1) Of how much more majesty, says Lord Brooke, is the term presbyter, which signifies senior,... whereas episcopus signifies nothing but an overseer-and such indeed bishops have

been for many years.' Disc. on Episc. p. 75.

2) Hist. of the First Plantg. of Christ'y, vol. i. p. 167.

3) See Dr. Wilson's Prim. Govt. of the Ch. pp. 146, 147.